SERMON 



ON DUELLING. 



DELIVERED IN 



CHRIST CHURCH, BALTIMORE, 



APRIL 28, 181 1, 






By Rev. FREDERIC BEASLEY, A. M- 

ASSOCIATE EECTOR OP ST. PAUL'S PABISH. IN SAID CITT. 



BALTIMORE : 

PRINTED ANtt PUBLISHED BY JOSB-PH ROBINSO' 

1811. 



:~M 



SERMON ON DUELLING, &c« 



Mr BRETHREN, 

MY text has already suggested to you, no doubt, 
that my intention is now to inveigh against the barbarous 
custom of Duelling. This custom has become so preva- 
lent in our country, that it has ceased to excite within us that 
horror which a Christian people should feel for a vice thai i§ 
so flagrant and presumptuous an outrage upon the laws both 
of God and man. So familiar have we become with objects 
of this nature, that we now read, almost without emotion, 
the recitals which so frequently occupy the columns of our 
papers, of these sanguinary contests marked, as they toe: 
often are, by all the circumstances of savage cruelty. Scarcely 
a week passes in which we do not receive intelligence tha r ; 
some blood has been spilt, or attempted to be spilt, in this 
way. The very style in which these deeds of madness and 
death are ushered into pubiick view, instead of being calcu- 
lated to make an impression upon the minds of the people 
favourable to virtue, tends rather to countenance and pro- 
mote the practice. In the representations which for the 
most part, are given in our papers, of these transactions of 
blood-guiltiness, so far are we from finding urged upon the 
mind those important and awful considerations which w oulcl 
excite the abhorrence of mankind for the practice and de 
ter them, from the repetition of it, that its ciminality, a 
cious as it is, is kept entirely out of view. It is alwa) 6 
considered as the honourable and established mode of obtain- 
ing a reparation of injuries or satisfaction for an affront 
of which no one questions the expediency or propriety. We 
are told, on these occasions, with a great deal of philosophick 
precision and cold-bloodedness, of the firmness and resolution 
with which the combatants received each others -fire; how 
often, after, by a single discharge of the pistols, the point of 
honor has been settled and Heaven, in pity to their madness 
and fatuity, has saved them from the fearful destiny they had 
courted, the work of death is renewed and the attempt re- 
peated on each others life, purely h&m tl nj Ise ol . 



and furious revenge ; how this one, after he has received the 
lire of his antagonist, when relea^td from all apprehension for 
his own safety, with cool and deliberate intent to murder, 
takes his aim and b/ings him to the ground. To transac- 
tions thus characterized by savage ferocity, is given an eclat 
extremely alluring to the youthful mind. The coolness and 
determined intrepidity of him who passes through them with- 
out perturbation, are celebrated in strains of the highest pa- 
negyrick. If any one, after the incipient measures have been 
entered into in these horrid negociations, relents from his 
cruel purpose and discovers a generous wish to retract the 
offence, or to make a more amicable reparation of the injury, 
suspicions wounding to his honor and his fame are immedi- 
ately circulated; it is tauntingly insinuated that this efTort of 
true magnanimity originates in cowardice. Thus those who 
should deem themselves, in a measure, the guardians of the 
morals as well as the liberties of the people, unwittingly lend 
their aid towards adding fuel to the flames of those criminal 
passions which are the agents that produce these direful re- 
sults, offer every stimulus to propel our generous and too 
thoughtless youth into the field of blood. Hence it is that 
this horrid custom has obtained such a lamentable prevalence 
among us. It is appealed to, on all occasions, as the only 
honourable mode of deciding controversies, or of obtaining 
redress for the most trifling injuries. Our very legislators, 
who should consider themselves as under the strongest obliga- 
tions to set examples to their constituents of submission 
to the laws, of adherence to their moral duty, and reverence 
for religion, are among the foremost to engage in these feudal 
strifes. It is no longer, as in the barbarous ages of Europe, 
the ordeal of fire or water through which a man must pass to 
put his merits to the proof; but if he become a member of 
our great national council, and matters continue to proceed in 
their present course, 'ere long he must pass thro' the ordeal of 
blood to establish his claims to reputation or influence. The 
more distinguished those powers with which he is endowed, 
and which enable him to comprehend the true interests of his 
country, and the more ardent his zeal in advocating and main- 
taining her rights, the greater is the danger that she will be 
deprived at once of his talents and services by this summary 
and cruel process. But a few weeks ago the nation was 
amused for some days, as were the people formerly with the 
combats of the Gladiators, with the spectacle of two of its 
most distinguished representatives, passing through all the pre- 
binary preparations to the acting of this fashionable tragedy. 



The plot is ripened and all matters appear to be ra^ 
hastening to the dreadful catastrophe. The horrid in- 
struments are prepared to offer up the victim. The specta- 
tors look on with an attention excited to the highest point of 
expectation, and seem to be anxiously desirous to behold 
the sacrifice. They appear to be even painfully disappointed 
because their eyes are not regaled with those bloody objects 
they had expected to contemplate. And all this is done 
amongst a christian people, by the framers of our laws, at 
the seat of power and authority, under the very eyes of our 
"Legislators, in despite of the reprobation of all good men, 
of the prohibitions of the law and those awful thunders in 
which the gospel speaks its denunciations on the subject.* 
And to conclude the history of this barbarous custom as it 
has exhibited itself amongst us, here under own own eyes, we 
see a young man cut off by it in the bloom of life, having all 
his fairest hopes blasted in the bud, sent uncalled and per- 
haps unprepared into the presence of his Judge. What an 
object is here presented to the view to awaken within us the 
deepest abhorrence of this inhuman custom ! The husband 
whom a fond wife had seen depart from his door in the 
morning in full health and vigour and with every promise 
of long life and enjoyment, before the close of day is brought 
almost lifeless home and presented to her distracted vision 
weltering in blood. Great God ! And do we live in a chris- 
tian land ? Do we live in a land through which the gospel of 
Jesus Christ has diffused its meliorating and peaceful influ- 
ence ? Is this barbarous custom to be perpetuated among 
us through all ages ? Is there no mode by which we can 

*Note, — Justice requires us hereto mention, that]to the honor of our 
country, one of her representatives at least, has been found firm and bold 
enough to take a decided stand on the side of virtue and religion, and to 
set his face against a custom which is at once the reproach and the 
scourge of the civilized world. Mr. Q.uincev has, in this respect, set an 
example to his countrymen, which in our estimation is not the least me- 
ritorious of his pubHck services distinguished as they have been.... And 
we trust we shall be allowed to remark, without subjecting ourself to 
the imputation of interfering in the political discussions of the day, that 
• o one who has marked the course of that" luminous mind" which has 
guided, and that intrepid spirit which has actuated him, but must confess, 
unless strangely prepossessed against him, that his noble refusal to com- 
ply with a practice at once so mischievous and so wicked, has its origin 
in any thing rather than in a want of courage. We have egregiously 
mistaken the texture of Mr. Quincey's mind and the energy of his cha- 
racter, if at the call of his country, or when summoned to action by the 
waited voice of duty, any man would be found more fearless in encoun- 
~ dangers and der^h ; avd it is this which makes up our definition of 
tme bravery. 



check this cool and deliberate and diabolical effusion of hu- 
man blood ? Formerly when Christianity extended itself 
among the barbarous nations of the Pagan world, it abolish- 
ed the cruel and unnatural practice of offering up human sa~ 
crlfices, the fruit of the bod)^ as an atonement for the sins 
of the soul. And shall it fail to produce the same effect at 
the present enlightened period, and among a people all whose 
religious and civil institutions are so benign in their spirit and 
so opposed to the effusion of human blood ? My Brethren — *> 
whilst we have rejected every other object of idolatry, we still 
retain our homage for one of the most malignant and gloomy to 
which an altar was ever reared or to which the human heart 
ever paid its absurd and superstitious devotions. The God 
Revenge, is the Moloch of modern times, to which the men who 
prostitute the name of honor by appropriating it to themselves, 
offer up their impious oblations. This is the idol at whose 
shrine such repeated offerings are made. I had hoped, in- 
deed, that after having drunk the blood of Hamilton, that 
illustrious man, whose name will through all future ages be 
connected with that of his country conferring and receiving 
immortality ; I had hoped, that after having drunk the blood 
of Hamilton, this sanguinary demon would have been sa- 
ted with the gore of human victims.* But my hope was 
vain. It would appear as if its appetite were only whetted 
by the very aliment it devours. Ah ! young men ! had you 
been present at the death-bed of our ever lamented Hamil- 
ton, had you seen how deep was the penitence of the gene- 
rous soldier, into whose bosom fear never gained admission, 
for the attrocious crime he had perpetrated in permitting any 
considerations to carry him to the field — had you seen with 
what bitterness Gf soul he deplored his folly and his guilt, 

* Note. . . We should fed ourself delinquent in duty and unfaithful to 
the glory of one of our most illustrious citizens, had we concluded our 
brief history of duelling ia this country without recurring to the memory 
and bearing our decided testimony to the very extraordinary merit oi' this 
great roan. In bestowing our homage on his talents and virtues, we have 
only made an effort to exonerate ourself of a load of gratitude which we 
owe him in common with the rest of our fellow citizens. We kno\v that 
he needs notour humble praise to bestow upon him the <• wreath of im- 
mortality." His fame, grafted upon that of Washington, the father of 
his country, shall grow and flourish with it to the remotest posterity. 
We delight also in recording the fact, that violent and criminal as was 
the act by which our Hamilton was brought to his end, he became a pe- 
nitent and died like a Christian. His noble spirit humbled itself in the 
deepest contrition at the feet of Jesus and obtained peace. Hamilton had 
before written his name in imperishable characters in the Temple of 
Fame, in his last moments he wrote it in the sanctuary ; for his peni- 
tence in death, we trust, that his G^d has written it in the book of life. 



and with what fervour he petitioned Heaven for mercy and 
sought to make hi peace with God— -could you have heard 
the agonizing sobbings of a beloved wife and family when 
they saw him thus hastening to an untimely end— the looks 
of tender anguish which he cast upon them, in which all the 
sensibilities of his soul seemed to be concentrated* — could 
you have witnessed the deep solicitude and almost filial ten- 
derness discovered by all classes of his fellow citizens, when 
they saw their country's second hope, thus ready to be ex- 
tinguished forever : you would no longer need our admoni 
tions to excite your deepest detestation of duelling and to de- 
termine you to permit no provocations whatever to induce 
you to call a fellow-creature to this cruel test. 

iou ill not misunderstand me, my brethren. It is by no 
means my intention to enter into any examination of the 
merits of that controversy which has just terminated in such 
an unhappy result, in our city. I take it for granted, that 
these mistaken young men have only acted conformably to 
those laws which usually regufcite proceedings of this kind. 
In this Holy temple, before the majesty of that altar, there 
can be no merits pleaded in the case. In relation to all af- 
fairs of this kind, " Thou shalt not kill," is the immutable 
decree which breaks forth from the sanctuary in tremendous 
accents. No apology can justify us for the violation of thi: 
decree. Waving, therefore, every attempt to canvass the me- 
rits of this particular controversy, by which without effecting 
anypublick good, I should only run the hazard of wounding 
still more than they have been already, the feelings of the 
iriends concerned ; my purpose is merely to avail myself of 
the present opportunity whilst your sensibilities, if you be 
men, must be alive on the subject, to make a more deep and 
lasting impression upon your minds, by exposing the foil) 
and absurdity, the atrocious guilt and the mischievous effects 
of the vice of duelling. 

My brethren : When I speak to you on this point, I 
can scarcely persuade myself that I am addressing a chris- 
tian audience in the nineteenth century, a period in which 
pure Christianity and the true philosophy, have shed around 
a full and resplendent light. I seem to be transported back 
again to the dark and gloomy days of Gothick barbarism. 
What did I say ? let me not be unjust even to the ages of Gothick 
ignorance. Duelling upon those principles on which itisnow 
conducted and as originating in those motives which now lead 
men to engage in it, was unknown to the ages of feudal barba- 
rism. Although it had its origin in the age of Chivalry, it has 



totally changed its nature and its principles in its pro- 
gress to our times. The generous combatant who entered 
the lists in those days, animated by the most elevated and 
even extravagant sentiments of honor and gallantry, would 
have felt his glory sullied by the consciousness of being actu- 
ated in his conduct by those unworthy and ignominious mo- 
tives which operate upon the mind of the modern Duellist. 
When he drew his sword, it was in the martial spirit of the 
times, in the pursuit of military glory, to present himself as 
the champion of the weak, the injured and oppressed, or in a 
religious and solemn appeal to Heaven to declare itself in his 
favour by granting the victory to his arms. The valorous 
Knight of the middle ages was dedicated to his warlike en- 
terprises by the sacred rites of his religion. The battles 
which he fought had received not only the encouragement of 
publick sentiment and the countenance of Princes, but in his 
estimation the awful sanction of his God. How different were 
the impressions under which he went into the field from those 
of the Duellist of the present day ! How unlike is the duel 
which prevails among us to the single combat of the ages of 
Chivalry! 

My intention is now to give you a compact and entire view 
of the subject of Duelling. 

I shall refute those pretexts which are urged, if not abso- 
lutely in justification, at any rate, in palliation of the guilt of 
this practice. 

I shall suggest some important and awful considerations 
to deter you from engaging in it. 

I shall prescribe some of the best means of exploding it. 

You have before you a plan of discourse, to which 
I would invite the serious attention of you all, but more 
especially, of our young men. I trust I shall be able to con- 
vince them that they may be as respectable, and much more 
happy in the intercourse of life, when principled against this 
practice, as when the most scrupulously attentive to all its 
ridiculous and absurd formalities... .And surely this subject 
demands the most solemn consideration of you all. It most 
vitally concerns you. Young man of principle and virtue ! 
until you set your face against this cruel custom, your life is 
at the disposal of the most worthless and abandoned wretches 
that walk the earth. Your talents and virtues, by exciting 
their envy and jealousy, only present incentives to them to 
direct their bullets to your heart. I solicit from you a candid 
and impartial hearing. Fathers ! mothers ! whilst this angel 
of death is permitted to go about seeking whom it may de- 



vour, your sons who are the stay of your declining life, may 
at any time after departing from your dwellings in perfect 
health in the morning, be brought home before night life- 
less bloody corses. I expect your most zealous co-ope- 
ration in our efforts to expel this savage custom. God 
grant ! that I may be able to fix a single young man 
in the determination never to permit any provocations what- 
ever to induce him to call a brother to this cruel test. God 
grant ! that, by any observations I shall make, I may prevent 
a single young man from staining his conscience and blasting 
his peace of mind by thus imbruing his hands in human gore. 
God grant ! that I may be able to save a single worthy youth 
from falling a victim to the barbarous practice ! 

Thou shalt not kill. This is one of the clauses of 
that law which was written by the fmger of God and pro- 
mulged from Sinai amidst thundermgs and lightnings and the 
loud sound of the trumpet. The penalty annexed to the vi- 
olation of it was death and was strongly expressed in the 
terms in which it had been delivered to Noah and his descen- 
dants, u He that sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood 
be shed." The only exceptions to this rule are, when one 
man kills another in self-defence, in a just and lawful war, 
or in executing the sentence of the civil magistrate. In 
cases also in which death was inflicted by casualty, without 
malice and without any intent to injure, cities of refuge 
were provided to which offenders might flee and be shel- 
tered from the inexorable rigors of the law. 

This is a brief statement of the laws which relate to ho- 
micide, as they were delivered under the Mosaic ©economy, 
This law, as it existed under the old dispensation, is neither 
disannulled nor mitigated by Jesus Christ. It is even ex- 
tended in its requisitions and guarded by more awful sanc- 
tions. Ye have heard, says our Divine Master, in his ser- 
mon on the mount, that is was said by them of old time., 
" thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill, shall be in 
danger of the judgment.'' But I say unto you, that whoso- 
ever shall be angry with his brother without a cause, shall 
be in danger of the judgment : and whosoever shall say to 
his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council ; but 
whosoever shall say thou fool, shall be in danger of hell-fire. 
Our blessed Lord does not even here set limits to his in- 
junctions. He enters into the heart, and would eradicate 
those vicious propensities that lead to homicide in the exter- 
nal conduct. " Ye have heard, that it hath been said by 
them ©f old time, thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate 
B 



10 

thme eaemy. But 1 say unto you love your enemies, bless- 
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." 

These are the statutes and ordinances, under which we, at 
present live. And yet, notwithstanding that this law against 
the shedding of human blood has been so solemnly pro- 
claimed from Mount Sinai, and obedience to it enforced by 
the most awful sanctions ; notwithstanding it has been re- 
newed, confirmed, and rendered more comprehensive in its 
terms by the Divine Founder of our faith, and its observance 
enjoined by sanctions still more tremendous, would it be 
believed? We are assembled here this evening in this temple 
of the God of mercy, before that altar from which life and 
peace only are dispensed, for the express purpose of my 
offering considerations which shall prevent you from mur- 
dering one another. For, my brethren, the shedding of 
human blood in duels, maugre all those softening names that 
have been bestowed upon it in the nomenclature of honor, 
is cool, deliberate, premeditated murder. Away with those 
distinctions that tend to wound virtue in oue of her most vi- 
tal parts, and loosen the arm of man from those restraints 
which keep him from spilling a brother's blood. Our juries 
may, in compliance with the lax morality of the times, bring 
in the verdict of manslaughter and thus save the criminal 
from the punishment he so justly merits, but in the Courts 
of Heaven, if we have any just idea of the sentiments which 
prevail there, the solemn sound that rings through them, on 
such occasions, is, murder, murder has been committed on 
earth, whilst angels let fall their tears over those miser: ; 
which infatuated man brings upon himself by his own folly 
and guilt. And, ah ! if we form any just conceptions of 
those feelings that reign in hell, the cry which resounds 
through its hideous abysses, is also murder, whilst a ghastly 
smile illumines for a moment, the grim aspects of Demons, 
at the perpetration of a deed on earth so worthy of them- 
selves. 

Let us now proceed to the discussion of the subject, if the i 
shivering horrors that seize us on the bare mention of the 
crime, do not preclude the necessity of entering on the argu- 
ment. Had not this species of murder various pretexts 
and disguises with which to veil from our sight the black- | 
ness of its aspect and the deformities of its shape, our ef- 
forts to expel it from the haunts of civilized life had been un- 
necessary. You would think I offered an insult to your under- 
standings, should I undertake a serious argument to convince 
you that you should not commit assassination on the highway. 



11 

I yet in the eyes of that immaculate Being who dwells hi 
in this house, when judged by that sacred volume in which 
is contained the revelation of his will ; how much less foul 
a culprit is he who with coolness and deliberation and, as is 
sometimes the case, with a malignant satisfaction, goes into 
the field with the diabolical intent of spilling a brother's 
blood ? I can scarcely form any conception of a wretch 
more hateful to God and who ought to be more hateful to man, 
than the professed duellist. The very epithet applied to him 
implies that his trade is this species of polite assassination. He 
is a beast of prey, a sanguinivorous animal, who prowls 
through the haunts of polite society in quest of objects to 
devour. In the most inoffensive language and deportment, 
he snuffs an insult and immediately commences the pursuit 
of his unfortunate victim and stops not a moment until he 
has bathed himself in his blood. What an object of detesta- 
tion is such a creature both to God and man ! 

But all men who engage in these shameful contests have not 
attained to this preeminence in the infamous art, and some are 
actuated by very different motives. There are disguises which 
veil the dark hue of the crime of duelling and pretexts urged 
in palliation of it, and they are these disguises and these 
pretexts which induce some men of worth and eminence to 
give their countenance and example in supporting and per- 
petuating the atrocious and mischievous custom. Let me, 
then, my brethren, for your satisfaction, proceed as I propo- 
sed, in the first place, to refute those pleas which are urged 
if not absolutely in justification, at any rate, in palliation of 
the guilt of this practice. 

The first pretext advanced in extenuation of the guilt oi 
Duelling is, that it is only seeking a reparation of injuries... 
* There are numberless injuries, it is said, which a man may 
receive that inflict upon him the deepest and most smarting 
wounds for which he can obtain no redress, or very inade- 
quate redress, by an appeal to the laws of his country. Where 
the laws of the land, therefore, cease to protect him from in- 
sult and wrong, he deems himself at liberty to protect himself.'' 
This is thr apology for this practice sometimes made even by 
those who are no duelists, but whom very bitter provocations 
might drive into the field. Let us examine its soundness and 
force. You have sustained an injury, you say, which is into- 
lerable, and since by having recourse to the tribunals of your 
country, you could obtain no competent satisfaction, you 
must seek it by the strength of your own arm. But in reply. 
my brethren, permit me ro enquire, whence fesirhs the indis- 



12 

pensable necessity of so punctiliously exacting a reparation of 
Injuries or a redress of wrongs ? Your God hath declared 
through the mouth of his Holy Apostle, " avenge not your- 
selves, vengeance is mine, I will repay." And the noblest 
model of virtue ever exhibitecLto the world was that which was 
set by Him who came to save it, and he, when he was reviled 
reviled not again ; when he suffered he threatened not, but 
committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. The sa- 
vage who roams through our wilderness, indeed, when he has 
received an injury, immediately conceives the most rancorous 
and implacable resentment and animosity. It is consistent 
with the maxims of his education, to pursue the offender with 
unrelenting cruelty. He tracks his footsteps through the de- 
sart with as much ardour and perseverance as ever blood- 
hound scented his prey. Whole days and nights will he per- 
sist in his vengeful mission, exposed to all the inclemencies of 
the weather and the hardships of hunger and thirst ; nor will 
he intermit his pursuit until he has glutted his revenge. Now, 
into whose character enters the larger share of moral beauty 
and perfection, into that of the Christian who imitates the 
example of his divine master and forgives injuries, or that of 
the savage of the wilderness, who conceives and cherishes to- 
wards his adversary the most deadly and exterminating ha- 
tred ? Js there any thing virtuous or praiseworthy, or ami- 
able in seeking to revenge an injury ? Or is not the dispo- 
sition to do so, rather a proof that although in a state of civi- 
lization a remnant of savagism still hangs about us ? 

But perhaps you are here disposed to complain that our 
animadversions are misplaced when directed against those 
who seek a reparation of injuries, since in order to correct 
evils of this kind we had better attack them in their origin, 
and level our invectives against those who inflict them. I 
grant that there is much justness and force in the remark, 
and it is a verv important consideration to those who are con- 
cerned in matters of this kind. I have no doubt, that upon 
those who wantonly inflict injuries and offer affronts, and yet 
have not the magnanimity to repair or retract them, rests the 
largest portion of the guilt, & that of consequence, upon their 
heads will descend the largest portion of the tremendous pe- 
nalty annexed, in the councils of Heaven, to these deeds of 
darkness. Nevertheless, since offences of this kind will come, 
whatever may be the wo denounced against those who are the 
authors of them, I would have you, if possible, so fortify 
your minds with moral and religious principles as to be able 
to meet them with firmness and dignity without, in the small- 



est degree, departing from the peaceful maxims of the gospel, 
The noblest revenge that can be indulged in, is that prescribed 
by the philosopher, who, when asked in what way we should 
avenge ourselves of an enemy, replied, " by being better 
than he." 

It is possible, that you are ready to admit the justness of all 
that I have advanced on this head. You readily allow that 
duelling is not to be defended upon Christian principles, that 
those who profess to follow the example of the Saviour would 
deny their faith and become a reproach to their holy profes~ 
sion, should they, in the slightest degree, participate in these 
evil works. But as you have never yet made profession of 
Christianity, and have not recognized its founder as the mode! 
for your imitation, you cannot perceive what solid objections 
lie in your case against your demanding in this way a repara- 
tion of injuries or a redress of wrongs. My brethren, what- 
ever may be the opinions or principles you anfortu- 
tunately have imbibed, nothing can release you from your ob- 
ligation to observe the great laws of your religious and moral 
duty. If it be an infraction of those laws to engage in an 
affair of this nature, the good man, whether young or old, 
should, surely, permit no provocations to drive him into such 
criminal excesses. 

But, nevertheless, in order to discuss the subject with you, 
I will meet you on your own ground. I will advance nothing 
which you are inclined to controvert ; I will withhold nothing 
which you are desirous to assume. You avow that you en- 
gage in this kind of single combat, in order to obtain a repa- 
ration of injuries, or satisfaction for an affront. And do you 
obtain them in this way ? Your brother has been so unfortu- 
nate as to have given you a slight offence, and for this slight 
offence would you spill his blood ? Can you find it in your 
heart to execute a punishment so vastly, so immeasurably 
disproportioned to the magnitude of the wrong done you ? 
Or in the code of laws established by honor, are all the dis- 
tinctions of greater and lesser crimes annihilated ? Are all 
of them, like those of Draco, written in blood ? "Will you, 
upon this new and strange system of judicial proceeding, in- 
flict the same penalty upon him who commits a mere pecca- 
dillo, as upon him who makes an attempt upon your life ? 

"But the injury he has done you is not an inconsiderable one, 
It is of the most aggravated and insupportable nature. He 
has turned calumniator and attempted to take from you your 
good name, dearer to you than life. Nay, he has done more : 
he has essayed to blast the reputation of your sister* voui 



- 

daughter or your wile; and these are wrongs which it is 
not in the patience of a human being to endure. You must 
call him into the field and meet the consequences." Be not 
too precipitate. Listen to the dictates of wisdom, and weigh 
well the counsels of experience.— -Suppose you do call him 
into the field for having defamed youself, your sister, daugh- 
ter or wife, what will be the benefits resulting to yourself, to 
them or to society ? If you are so unfortunate as to shed his 
blood, is this an ablution which will cleanse yourself, your sis- 
ter, daughter or wife, from the aspersions cast upon you by 
this vile traducer ? I presume it is no longer believed among 
you, as in the days of Gothick superstition in which this 
practice originated, that God himself will look on, hold the 
scales, and determine the victory on the side of him whose 
cause is just. Where, then, are the advantages that can ac- 
crue to you from an appeal to the pistol ? If the charges he 
alledged against you were true, the fire of a pistol has not 
proved them false— if they were false, they were not worthy 
of such an effort to refute them. The most notoriously guilty 
are always as ready, and even more ready, to have recourse 
to this mode of defending their reputations, as they call them, 
when in truth they have none to lose, as those who are con- 
scious of the most unsullied integrity, and who might be in- 
dulged in discovering some degree of virtuous indignation at 
the impotent efforts of slander and defamation. If, therefore, 
in a contest originating in such a cause, you have slain your 
antagonist, you have not proved him a calumniator, or that 
those whose fame he aspersed are innocent of the charges al- 
leged against them. But what have you done ? A deed, at 
the bare mention of which your blood should freeze in your 
veins, and your soul petrify with horror. You have out- 
raged that law which was written in your heart by your Cre- 
ator, and which impelled you to do your brother a deed of 
kindness, instead of a deed of murder. You have trampled 
ripen the positive ordinances both of God and man. You 
have sullied and defaced in him the image of your Maker.-— 
You have wrested from your Saviour one for whom he shed 
his blood, and who might, but for you, have become a subject of 
his saving grace. You have snatched the avenging bolt from 
the hand of Omnipotence, and presumed to hurl it against a 
fellow-creature. You have pushed a soul unsummoned, and 
if he have not time left for repentance, with all his sins upon 
his head, into the fearful presence of his Judge. You have- 
shoved a hapless wretch who was hanging on a precipice, into 
_?:■? tretneiidous eafeb that vawneft below. You have de- 



frauded Heaven and its inhabitants of a seal that ought to 
have become a partaker of their sacred joy, and contributed 
your aid towards promoting the gloomy and diabolical work 
of peopling hell with victims. O, liuelist ! in what a deep-toned 
voice of recrimination will a brother's blood cry out against 
thee at the tribunal of God ! 

If this mode of seeking a reparation of injuries is marked 
by such consummate folly and impiety, it is no less character- 
ized by the most palpable and matchless absurdity. Say 
that your neighbour has inflicted on you a deep and painful 
wound, one for which he justly deserves to suffer, what is 
the expedient you resort to, to obtain reparation ? You pre- 
sent yourself before him to be shot at. You are not conten- 
ted that he should have wronged you, you would have hirn 
also deprive you of life, make your wife a widow, if you 
have one, and your children fatherless. Would you not deem 
that a singular and extraordinary penal code which should 
annex the same penalty to innocence as to guilt ? Formerly 
when appeals of this kind, were incorporated into the system 
of jurisprudence, they were resorted to only in the most per- 
plexed and difficult cases, cases in whieh it was impossible 
for the court to extract from the testimony offered, sufficient 
evidence on which to ground a decision. But according to 
the decisions of these new judicatories, instituted by fashion, 
when there is no intricacy or perplexity in the matter, when 
the innocence of one party is as evident as the light, and the 
criminality of the other as evidently black as midnight, they 
are both condemned to the same punishment. Should Satan 
break from his dark dominions below and erect a tribunal 
upon earth, should we not have reason to expect that it would 
be distinguished by such adjudications ? 

Let us briefly review a few of the judgments pronounced 
by this high court of honor, in order that we may form a 
more correct estimate of their righteousness and equity. 
Seest thou that wretch ? Because he is able to deck himself 
in the most costly habiliments, he commences the gentleman* 
and for the very same reason, gains admission into good 
company. He is remarkable for his adroitness in performing 
his part in all the fashionable amusements of the day. He 
prides himself also on being a man of spirit, on his thorough 
acquaintance with all the nicest punctilios of honor, and on 
his exquisite skill in directing his bullet to the mark. To 
all these polite accomplishments, however, he unites a de- 
praved heart, libertine principles and the most licentious mo- 
rajs, Scarcely the shoot of a siqgle virtue appears throughout 



• 

the wide and barren extent of his character, but his vices 
are the rankest and most poisonous weeds that grow. Not- 
withstanding all his vices and imperfections, he is what is 
termed, genteel in his manners, and this is a substitute with the 
world for the virtues and graces, and gives him a safe pass- 
port to all polished circles. He gains access to the family of 
a virtuous and amiable citizen. He acquires by his address, 
his esteem and confidence. He avails himself of it, to work 
out his destruction. Like Satan when he stole intoParidise,so, 
he enters this virtuous family but to betray and to destroy. 
Trained in all the wiles of seduction, he exerts them to the 
utter ruin of his unsuspecting friend. The fond husband 
beholds her who was the chosen companion of his life, the 
mother of his children, her in whose society he had found 
his tenderest and sweetest pleasures, dishonoured, sullied 5 
sunk to the lowest state of degradation. Domestick joy, 
that brightest beam which illumines for us the dreary waste 
of existence, is now extinguished to him forever. The 
shades of a black and interminable night seem to gather 
round his soul. He awakes, as from a dream of happiness, 
to a sense of his poignant and incurable agony. Writh- 
iag under a sense of the irreparable injury he has sus- 
tained, with his heart bleeding at every pore, maddened with 
resentment and despair, he determines that the foul offender 
shall meet a merited retribution. He appeals to the court of 
honor to award the penalty due to crimes so atrocious. It 
determines — Whatthimk you is its determination ? That the 
base traitor to his friend, the foul seducer, shall expiate his 
crimes on the rack or the wheel of the Inquisitor ? or shall 
spend the remainder of his days amidst the cheerless glooms 
of a dungeon ? Ho—It determines, that this virtuous and 
deeply injured man, shall present his breast as a mark to 
be shot at by the execrable culprit, who has sedulously train- 
ed himself to this horrid warfare, whose bullet has been 
taught to fly winged with death, whilst all the satisfaction 
he obtains is the poor privilege of returning his erring fire. 
Such is the vaunted reparation of injuries which this fa- 
shionable mode of hostility oilers to mankind. But this is 
only a single instance. The absurdity of this practice as a 
mean of obtaining reparation, might be demonstrated by a 
recital of almost every instance which has occurred in the 
whole annals of duelling. The virtuous sufferer, almost 
always, gains nothing by these appeals but augmented wrong. 
The court of honor, upon its present establishment, awards 
but one punishment, and there are a thousand chances to 



17 

one, that this will fall upon the head of the injured. They are 
the worthless and the hardened only, who will ever pass 
through the preparatory discipline, in order to become adepts 
in this cruel art. The feelings of the good man revolt from 
the very idea, of thus coolly and systematically preparing him- 
self to shed human blood, without license from his God, his 
country or his own conscience. Hence, if any provocations 
drive him to the field, he goes like a lamb to the sacrifice, to 
be slain by the hands of violence and villainy.— In a word, 
this new mode of terminating disputes, reverses the whole 
course of proceeding in courts of judicature, as well as the 
established order of divine providence ; it distributes rewards 
to the wicked and punishments to the good. Is it not a most 
glaringly absurd method of seeking a reparation of injuries , ? 

If this practice, as a mode of seeking reparation of injuries, is 
chargeable with such excessive folly and absurdity, with this 
folly and absurdity is mingled also a large portion of madness. 
You have sustained a wrong from an adversary, and in order 
to redress it, into what accumulated ills, into what an abyss 
of guilt and misery are you not plunging ? If he should perish 
by your hands, your peace of mind is destroyed, the sorrows 
of his bereaved wife and children will wring your heart with 
anguish, his image dropping gore, like a ghastly spectre, will 
haunt your pillow and rob you of repose. Should you your- 
self fall in the encounter, upon what a fearful fate do you pre- 
cipitate yourself ? You deprive a wife and family of that sup-* 
port and protection to which they had an undoubted claim, 
and leave them to endless regret and lamentation. By tak* 
ing upon you the disposal of your own life, you impiously and 
presumptuously invade the high prerogative of Heaven* Your 
Creator, no doubt, formed you for the wisest and mostbenevo* 
lent purposes, you defeat his supreme designs concerning you, 
by rushing prematurely upon the shaft of death* By this single 
act of insanity, you cancel all your claims to that great salva- 
tion which hath been purchased for you by the precious blood 
of the Son of God, and abandon, at the very moment, when 
its destiny is to be sealed forever, the vital interests of your 
immortal soul. With impious temerity you tempt that dread 
eternity, the approach of which has filled with terror the wise 
and good of all ages, and to enable them to meet which with 
tolerable composure, has required all the resources of philoso* 
phy, and all the potent succors of religion, At the serious and 
solemn moment of death, when you should be making your 
peace with God and commending your spirit, with filial affU 
tfrfise ? into the hands of this Heavenly Parent, vou are insulting* 

c 



18 

the majesty of his supreme law and braving the terrors of hh 
wrath : when you should be uttering your benedictions upon 
your fellow men, you are breathing out menaces and slaugh- 
ter against them. Your eyes, which ought to be shedding only 
the tears of contrition at the feet of your Saviour, are darting 
the fires of vengeance against a fellow creature. Your hands, 
which ought to be lifted up to Heaven petitioning for mercy, 
are raised against a brother's life. Death seals up your, eyes, 
the tomb closes its mouth upon you, your everlasting doom 
is irreversibly decided, without your having uttered one peti- 
tion for mercy, dropped a single tear of contrition, felt a sin- 
gle emotion of forgiveness, or caught the glimmering of a sin- 
gle ray of hope. The first moment of tranquillity which your 
bosom enjoys, after having been agitated, like a stormy sea, 
by those furious passions which were spending their rage with- 
in it, is, when it settles down into the solemn and awful still- 
ness of death — Oh ! what an end is this for a rational and im- 
mortal being to bring upon himself ! My Saviour ! what a 
contrast to this scene did thy crucifixion exhibit, when thou 
didst spend thy latest breath, in uttering divine benedictions,, 
in recommending thy soul to God, and in praying for the for* 
giveness of thy murderers ! 

Such are the excessive folly and absurdity, and even mad- 
ness of this custom, as a means of obtaining reparation for in- 
juries, Whatever deficiencies there may be in the laws of the 
land in adjusting matters of honor, it is certain that they are 
not supplied by this expedient. If courts of justice in some 
cases, cannot afford the injured ample reparation, it is still less 
afforded -to them by the court of honor. 

The next pretext urged in defence of duelling, is no less 
futile, and no less susceptible of an ample refutation. " It is said 
that the prevalence of the custom, operates as a preventive of 
injuries and insults. That he who should pass by affronts 
without resenting them, by offering impunity to offenders of 
this kind, would invite aggressions and expose himself to end- 
less indignities and humiliations." Admitting, for a moment, 
for the sake of argument, that duelling does tend to prevent 
the frequent recurrence of indignities and wrongs, does this 
consideration justify the practice ? Should the government 
under which you live, think proper to ordain, that every offence 
against the laws should be deemed alike capital and punished 
with death, it is certain that such a statute would diminish 
the number of lesser crimes in the state, but would it on that 
account be less a measure of insupportable tyranny, less an 
outrage upon the liberties of mankind i Similar to such a lav; 



19 

are the statutes and ordinances which relate to duelling. The 

] duellist, in order to guard against future treatment which 

| may be offensive to him, subjects another to a penalty due 

only to the worst of crimes. If his life were endangered by 

| his adversary, he would have a right to slay him, but he would 

maim or destroy him upon the most trivial provocations,. 

We might expect to see such displays of lawless violence and 

ungovernable ferocity among wolves and tygers, but we could 

hardly calculate on beholding them among rational and social 

beings. 

Duelling is sometimes represented as the cause of that ur- 
banity of manners, that delicate and punctilious attention 
men pay to each other's feelings, which ever since the 
days of chivalry, have prevailed in the circles of polished 
life. If.it were even true, that such an advantage does accrue 
to society from the predominance of this horrid custom, it 
would be purchased upon these terms at a price infinitely ex- 
orbitant. If the smiles of the genius of civility, like those of 
the objects of idol worship, are to be procured only by immo- 
lating to him the flower of our youth, it would certainly be a 
calculation of expediency, as well as a matter of duty, to fore- 
go his favor. But this opinion, although it has received the 
sanction of high authority, I am inclined to think, has been 
adopted without due examination ; it is not only dangerous 
to good morals, but unphilosophical and false. During the 
existence of the feudal institutions, indeed, when the govern- 
ment was completely military, and when the great and lead- 
ing object of its policy, was to excite and maintain a martial 
spirit ; when, in order to accomplish this purpose, jousts and 
tournaments were exhibited, in which men were inured to 
the hardships and the perils of war ; in a word, when man- 
kind were propelled to feats of military glory by the combin- 
ed influence of love, of religion, and the desire of fame, three 
of the most powerful springs of human conduct, and when, 
in consequence, a martial ardor beat in every pulse, and suc~ 
cess in warlike enterprises, was the established price by which 
were purchased the prize of beauty, the rewards of religion 
and the favor of princes ; during such a period as this, the 
decision of private controversies by single combat, may not 
only have been congenial to the spirit Gf times, and have con-, 
tributed to promote the great views of the government, but 
may have tended also to temper and control that ferocity of 
manners, which would naturally arise out of such a state ox 
things, and to polish and improve the habits of social inter- 
course. But since the fabricks of feudal despotism have fal>- 



20 

len into ruins, and there have risen in their stead fairer forms 
of civil polity, forms to which that fierce and warlike spirit 
which upheld them is no longer necessary, the duel, from hav~ 
ing been an institution not entirely without its use, has become 
a baneful one. Having degenerated from its primitive sim- 
plicity and become corrupt in its principles, it has lost all its 
beneficial efficacy,.. .In fact, the duel which prevails among us, 
divested of that martial ardor and that religious prejudice 
which ennobled, recommended, and gave it life and animation, 
is but the dead and loathsome carcase of the original institu- 
tion.,«*Its effects are now baleful ; it infects the air with pes- 
tilential vapors. Instead of being the cause of our complai- 
sance of manners, it is one of its worst and most mischiev- 
ous accompaniments.*— No — far different from this and more 
efficient, are the moral causes that have operated to pro- 
duce modern civilization and refinement. These are effects 
which may be traced back, to the gradual decline of the old 
feudal institutions and the establishment of milder and more 
equitable forms of government in their place, the advance- 
ment we have made in the sciences and our improvements 
In the arts, the more general diffusion of useful knowledge 
which has been constantly increasing ever since the revival of 
letters in Europe; and above all, the promulgation and preva- 
lence of Christianity in the original purity of its principles 
and benignity of its spirit, which took place at the period of 
the reformation, These are the great moral causes, which 
have contributed to humanize mankind and meliorate the ha- 
bits of social life. Out of these causes, have also sprung, the 
punctilious delicacy and civility of our manners. — Duelling, so 
far from being the cause of our softness and gentility of man- 
ners, is rather the mode in wh'.ch, in spite of that benevolence 
and humanity which all the causes I have enumerated are cal- 
culated to excite, the ancient barbarism of our nature still con- 
tinues to exhibit itself. We have learned, indeed, to despise 
those unmanly stratagems, by which the savage entraps and 
destroys his enemy. We are justly shocked at the idea of 
waylaying an adversary, and administering death to him in 
the dark by the stiletto or the dirk. But the causes that have 
operated to produce our civilization and refinement, have not 
accomplished their full effect, until they shall have abolished 
also this cruel rite of savage revenge. In truth, and to refute 
this suggestion by a single word, if our sensibility to inju- 
ries, and our summary and sanguinary mode of resenting 
them, be a cause of the politeness and gentility of our man- 
ners, savages themselves ought to be, of all men, the most 



distinguished by these accomplishments, since no people are 
more alive to a sense of injuries, and none inflict upon their 
enemies a more exemplary and terrible vengeance. 

To return to the plea in mitigation of the guilt of duellings 
which I was endeavouring to refute. ...You say, a that should 
you refuse in this way to call others to account for the affronts 
offered you, or to give them this satisfaction when required* 
you should invite aggressions, and expose yourself to endless 
mortification and ill usage." And is it possible, that you can 
devise no plan of saving yourself from being contemned and 
trodden under foot, but by staining yourself with the crime 
of blood-guiltiness ? How do those respectable men of your ac- 
quaintance, who have nothing to do with duels or duelists, 
protect themselves from indignities and wrongs ? Do you not 
remark that, for the most part, men who are of the most solid 
and preeminent worth, sustain fewer provocations than others ? 
The dignity of your own character and the propriety of your 
conduct, form a much better safe-guard to you against inju- 
rious and affrontful treatment from others, than any acknow- 
ledged readiness on your part to res ent it. In fact, as long 
as the publick sentiment shall remain so lamentably erroneous 
on this point, and there shall be considered to be any thing 
glorious in hazarding life in this way, there will not be want- 
ing those, who shall designedly give affronts, in order that they 
be thus genteelly resented. The soldier who has been bred to 
arms, is said to become desirous of war. f So, in like manner, 
he who has prepared himself by regular discipline for this 
species of rencounter, shall he not be anxious to exhibit a spe- 
cimen of his skill ? Thus, whilst this custom is at all tolerat- 
ed, whilst mankind neglect to raise a decided voice of repro- 
bation against it, and expel it from the pale of civilized life* 
instead of diminishing, it will rather augment the number of 
altercations and disputes. The quarrelsome wretch, who feels 
himself eclipsed by the talents and attainments of a rival, 
finds this an easy and expeditious mode by which to relieve 
himself from the burthen of his superiority. Take your sta-* 
tion, therefore, on the side of God and his altar, and there 
having deeply entrenched yours elf, boldly and resolutely main- 
tain your ground. Assume a firm and dignified deportment^ 
and prove that your forbearance arises from a scrupulous re- 
gard to duty, and an awful reverence for religion, and you need 
disturb yourself with no apprehensions, that your conduct, 
will expose you to future injuries and mortifications. Those 

twho possess real energy of character and inflexibly adhere to 
virtue, never fail to obtain ultimately the esteem" and conn- 



22 

dence of their fellow-men. To the good man, duelling, even 
if it were compatible with his principles, could be of no con- 
ceivable advantage, but to the bad one, it is true, it mav some- 
times contribute essential service. If he can derive any gra- 
tification from the reflection, he has the consolation of know- 
ing, that this custom shelters him from those outward expres- 
sions of contempt and abhorrence which every man entertains 
in his heart for him, and may sometimes bolster up his decay- 
ed and rotten reputation. These are the wondrous advanta- 
ges which society reaps from duelling. It is the laver, in which 
the foulest offenders, without undergoing the pains of repen- 
tance or the toils of reformation, may wash and be instanta- 
neously clean. The base seducer, whose heart is calous to the 
upbraidings and entreaties of injured innocence, the wretch 
sullied with the stains of adultery, the knave who has thrived 
and battened upon the widow's and the orphan's portion, the 
libertine, whose debaucheries have broken down his constitu- 
tion, scandalized his religion and insulted his God ; all these, 
when sprinkled with the blood shed in these holy conflicts, 
come out with the purity of confessors. They are, thenceforth, 
regenerated, -men whose honor no one dares impeach, fitted 
to resume, with increased respectability, their former station 
in society. Wonderful, in such cases, is the efficacy of a duel ! 
Miraculous it's power, in cleansing the reputation from the 
most indelible stains ! Su^h are the folly and absurdity of this 
practice when viewed under all its various points of light. 
Let me hasten to the lastpretextallegedinits defence. " You 
avow, perhaps, that you would be willing to overlook or con- 
nive, at the injury or affront you have received. ...that you 
would also consent to run the hazard of inviting future ag- 
gressions by your forbearance, yet you can never think of 
subjecting yourself to the imputation of cowardice. If you 
do not call your antagonist to account, or if you refuse to lis- 
ten "to his summons to the field, the world will brand you as 
a coward, and while resting under such disgrace life would 
become insupportable. It is the province of a generous spi- 
rit, to desire life, no longer, than while it can be supported in 
honor and reputation." This is, in fact, the grand motive 
which propels men to become actors in these scenes of blood. 
Few are volunteers in affairs of this nature ; no one pretends 
to justify the practice ; all admit that it is a most atrocious 
and abominable one : yet they plead that a compliance with 
it is an indispensable sacrifice to the publick opinion. Far be 
it from me, to wish to extinguish one generous emotion in the 
youthful bosom, or to relax the tension and check the manh v 



23 

impulses of a virtuous intrepidity of soul... . I would rather 
give them my most ardent encouragement. Could I be persuad- 
ed, that men are encountering, in this way, the perils of the 
field in the cause of virtue, as was done with the champions 
of old, I would consecrate them to their functions by the sa- 
cred rites of religion, I would pronounce upon them the be- 
nedictions of the Church, I would invoke for them the bles- 
sing of that God who is the unfailing advocate of virtue. 
But they are not contending on the side of virtue, in these fatal 
strifes. Not one virtuous motive ever carries them to the 
field. Not one virtuous emotion rises in their hearts while 
they remain there. Not one of the rewards of virtue do they 
reap in reflecting upon the part they have performed in an af- 
fair of this kind. Vicious motives alone carry them to the 
scene of action. Vicious emotions only are awakened there, 
and the reward of viceonlv, do they reap through all their fu- 
ture life in reflecting upon the part they have performed ; and 
that reward, is endless regret and inquietude. Upon this 
practice, therefore, will be forever uttered the bitterest anathe- 
mas of religion. It is as hostile to all her plans for the salva- 
tion of mankind, as it is to the wisest measures of the civil ma.- 
gistracy. 

But let me refute the last pretext advanced in its defence. 
That a refusal to comply with it, will involve us in disgrace 
with the world. The grand misfortune on this part of the 
subject, is, that we have to contend with a chimcsra, a mon- 
ster, which it is always one of the greatest labors to subdue. 
For, permit me to ask, who constitute this world with whom 
you would be disgraced, by refusing to send or accept a chal- 
lenge ? There is not one good man or woman in it, who would 
not hold you, for so doing, in the higher estimation. He 
who saved the life of a Roman citizen had a civic crown be- 
stowed upon him, one of the most honorable of all distinc- 
tions. The young man of virtue and energy of character, 
who, from correct views of the subject, shall, in the present 
state of things, refuse and persist in refusing to send or accept 
an invitation to the field, will deserve from the republic many 
a civic crown ; for he will have saved the life of many an 
American citizen. A few examples of this kind would dis- 
countenance and expel the practice. And here, allow me to 
enquire, is a rencounter of this sort any test of genuine cou- 
rage ? You know and admit that it is not. The greatest pol- 
troons on earth, may work themselves up to the fighting point. 
Many a one goes into the field, with a heart palpitating with 
terror and a soul dismayed by danger, to convince the world 



that he is not afraid. Some, make one bold and desperate 
effort of this kind, to relieve themselves from the necessity of 
displaying future proofs of bravery. What is genuine cou- 
rage? Is it the rage of the madman, who rushes upon dangers 
and death without motive and without advantage ? Is it dis- 
played by him, who casts himself into the ocean and is drown- 
ed, in pursuit of the bubble that glitters on its surface ; or by 
him who leaps down a precipice and is dashed to pieces, to 
obtain the pebble which sparkles at its feet ? This madman, 
who casts himself into the ocean and is drowned, in pursuit of 
the bubble that glitters on its surface, who leaps down a pre- 
cipice and is dashed to pieces, to obtain the pebble that sparkles 
at his feet, is the duellist ; and this glittering bubble, this 
sparkling pebble, is a reputation for bravery which he expects 
to establish by it. No. True bravery wants no such feeble 
props to support it, as those which it can derive from these 
shameful contests. It consists not in rashly and foolishly sporting 
away life, but in meeting, with firmness and intrepidity, dangers 
and death, in the discharge of duty. True courage, derives 
its nutriment from a virtuous heart, and a mind conscious of 
rectitude. Vice is always timid, and the utmost effort of 
which it is capable, is to assume the semblance of genuine bra- 
very. 

" But it is said, that if to engage in a duel be no proof of 
bravery, a refusal to do so, might be construed into a want of 
it, and the generous mind could ill brook to remain under the 
slightest suspicion of cowardice." This is the Gorgon- head, 
whose frightful appearance, petrifies the feelings of mankind, 
and converts them into marble. It is the fear of a disgrace 
like this, which impels them to act a part their own judg- 
ment condemns, and from which their inmost souls re- 
volt. They are tremulously alive, to the apprehension of en- 
countering the scorn of a few of the dissolute and worthless^ 
but they can outrage their own conscience, and set their God 
at defiance. My brethren, is there no other mode, by which 
you can prove that you are no cowards, but by blighting the 
peace of your bosom and trampling upon the laws of God t 
How did mankind display their bravery, before this mad and 
cruel custom was heard of ? How did the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, those illustrious people, whose exploits have furnished 
the historian, with some of his richest and most splendid ma- 
terials, how did they convince mankind that they were no 
cowards ? To come down to our own times, how do our fellow- 
citizens of the Eastern states, save themselves from the foul 
imputation • They are no duellists ; to be concerned in affair 



of this kind is, among them, even deemed dishonorable. And 
yet, will it be said, that they want bravery ? The history of 
the revolutionary war, would answer and refute the allegation. 
They were, during the revolution, the nerve of our union, 
and among the bravest defenders of the liberties of their coun- 
try. In truth, were the practice against which I am now in- 
veighing, calculated to accustom our youth to noble daring, 
and to inure them to the hardships and the dangers of war ; 
were it calculated to supply our army with bold and efficient 
commanders, it would not be without some color of excuse 
for the atrocious guilt which is contracted by it, and the num- 
berless mischiefs it occasions. But to the attainment of such 
objects as these, it is, by no means adapted, The feelings 
of the brave officer, who goes into the field of battle in the 
defence of his country, have not the most remote affinity to 
those of the man who contends in this private and unlicensed 
war. 

Young man ! fix your determination on this subject, and 
let no consideration induce you to swerve from your moral 
and religious duty. Have nothing to do with these deeds of 
darkness. Let not the scorn of the unworthy, which you 
should despise, or groundless apprehensions of disgracing 
yourself with the world, prevail upon you to forfeit the appro- 
bation of the wise and good, to fill yourself with the gnawings 
of an endless remorse, to insult your God and put to immi- 
nent hazard, your everlasting salvation. If you receive an 
affront from another, withdraw yourself from his society, 
treat him as a heathen man and a publican, until he ingenuous- 
ly confesses his fault and offers an atonement, or until you 
have learnt to conquer your own resentment. If you are 
summoned by another to the field, generously offer to make 
him an amicable reparation for any injury you may have done 
him. If he have not the magnanimity to accept your offer, he 
is unworthy of your attention. If he persists in requiring 
you to meet him, tell him that you are principled against thus 
imbruing your hands in human gore, and that a reverence 
for religion and the fear of God restrain you. Guided by 
these virtuous and noble principles, let no provocations shake 
your resolution or drive you from your purpose. Thus feel- 
ing and thus acting, whatever temporary inconveniences you 
may sustain, whatever obloquy and reproach you may have 
to encounter for a time, you must finally come off triumphant. 
Opportunities enough will occur, in the ordinary transactions 
of life, to discover your firmness and intrepidity. And where- 
ver the sacred voice of dutv calh you, there go in. spite of 



26 

difficulties:, of dangers and of death. This is true courage, 
this is genuine bravery. 

Thus, my brethren, I trust that I have refuted to your sa- 
tisfaction those pleas, usually urged in extenuation of the guilt 
of duelling. Are you not, then, resolved that no provocations 
whatever, shall induce you to send, or accept an invitation to 
the field ? No. You admit all its folly, its absurdity and its 
guilt, yet from an indefinable sensation on the subject, from a 
sensibility tremulously alive to the slightest suspicion of dis- 
honor, or a want of courage, you think you might be forced in- 
to such a measure. Go, then, if you are resolved to set all 
laws both divine and human at defiance ; go, and let me fol- 
low you through this scene, that by depicting it in its several, 
stages your strange infatuation may be cured. 

With a young man of your own age and of similar character, 
you have contracted habits of the closest intimacy. His en- 
dowments have gained him your admiration and esteem, and 
his virtues have endeared him to your heart. To express every 
thing in one word, he is the friend of your bosom. In fa- 
miliar intercourse with his family, you have passed many of 
the happiest moments of life. Your heart has throbbed with 
delight, when you have witnessed the harmony, and peace and 
ioy which reigned within it. Each was to each a dearer self, 
The talents and virtues of your friend, are elevatinghim to that 
rank among his fellow-men to which they are justly entitled, 
He is rising to stations of honor and emolument* His little 
family, whose whole destiny in life depends upon his exertions, 
have the most flattering prospects now opening before them. 
No one more cordially and fervently participates his happiness 
than yourself. This scene, however, thus bright with sun- 
shine, is soon overcast with clouds. During a moment of 
warmth in debate, opprobrious language has been exchanged 
between you. The flame of resentment is kindled. The furies 
now take possession of those places in your bosoms, which 
peace and friendship before occupied. The gauntlet of de- 
fiance is thrown down. All explanation is disdained. Honor 
and pride close the door against accommodation. The place 
and time of meeting are agreed upon. Each now retires to 
pass the dreadful interim between the forming of a guilty 
purpose and its execution, which is like a " phantasma or hi- 
deous dream." Now reason claims a hearing, and pleads ear- 
nestly for an accommodation, by representing the gross ab- 
surdity of permitting a single rash word to cancel the claims 
of a long-tried friendship ; then, conscience assumes all that 
authority with which Heaven has invested her in the human 



27 

breast, terrifies him with the images she portrays of his guilt 
and menaces him with her scourge, whilst friendship pleads 
at die bottom of his heart and melts it with tenderness : but 
their united efforts are of no avail. The demon of honor is 
inexhorable, Crimsoned with gore and delighting in the sa- 
crifice of human victims, it turns a deaf ear to the remonstran- 
ces of reason, and the pleadings of humanity. Me cannot 
brook the thought of making any concessions, and yet he is 
unceasingly perturbed. His sleep is short and interrupted. 
In his dreams, fancy weaves every web of dark and melancholy 
hue. She bears him through every scene of misery, and ter- 
rifies him with frightful forms of death. At this moment, 
whilst indulging the full flow of domestic joy, his friend seems 
to approach him, cast a fierce and menacing look and aim a 
dagger at his heart ; at the next, he beholds his wife, clad in 
mourning and pale with grief, accompanied by his weeping 
children, prostrate herself before him and beseech him by his 
tenderness for them all, to forego his direful purpose* Now, 
he appears to be wandering through the gloomy regions of 
death, where no object meets the eye but dry bones, naked 
sculls, pallid corpses, and human bodies on which the worms 
are feeding ; then, on a sudden, opens before him a scene 
such as his imagination has painted the residence of condemn- 
ed spirits ; he sees its flames ascending, hears the agonizing 
groans of the victims of despair, when a demon more malig- 
nant than the rest seems to approach him, give a fearful shriek, 
and attempt to bear him off; whilst in the effort to extricate 
himself from his grasp, he starts, awakes, and is overjoyed to 
find that it is but a dream. Thus passes the night in which 
he finds no repose. The images of death and murder haunt 
him sleeping and waking. The morning, pregnant with bis 
fate, arrives. He rises, takes a view, which a boding voice 
whispers in his ears, shall be the last, of his wife and children 
who are still enjoying their peaceful slumbers. His heart is 
wrung with anguish at thus leaving them, but he makes an ef- 
fort to steel it against every soft emotion. He hastens to the 
place of rendezvous. All parties are punctual to the hour. In 
such works of iniquity there are few delinquents. The in- 
struments of death are provided. All the feelings of their for- 
mer attachment are, for a moment, extinguished, and a dead- 
ly revenge lighted up in their stead. The combatants take 
their stand. The signal is given, and they fire. God and the 
holy angels, have had compassion on them. Their bullets ; 
missed their mark. Heated, now, in the conflict, and stung 
with a sense of mutual injury, they, resolve to tempt He? 



28 

hf a second trial. Again they fire, and Heaven again pre- 
serves them.. ..No blood has as yet been shed, and honor is not 
appeased but by the shedding of human blood. A third time, 
therefore, do they, now boiling with the rage of demons, 
measure their distances and attempt to bathe themselves in 
gore. Heaven has now abandoned them in righteous displea- 
sure. Angels behold the scene with indignant pity.. ..Hark ! 
again do they exchange fires. The fatal work is now accom- 
plished.. ..The ball enters his heart, the blood gushes from 
the wound, he falls, gasps for breath, fetches a deep groan and 
expires. 

With his breath flees also the resentment of his friend.... 
His tenderness is all renewed. The bitterest remorse seizes 
him. In an agony of grief, he throws himself on the lifeless 
body. Fain would he now recai the fatal fire, fain would he 
call back his fleeting spirit. But the mischief he has done 
is remidiless....The body is borne to its former habitation, but 
the immortal spirit has fled forever. The first object that 
greets the eyes of his wife and children, after rising cheerful- 
ly in the morning and commencing their daily pursuits and 
pleasures, is that of a husband and a father, presenting himself 
to their petrified senses, a bloody corse. The house resounds 
with their shrieks. But ah \ who shall paint the feelings of 
the surviving combatant ? He stands like a green tree, riven 
and blasted in its bloom by the bolt of Heaven. The voice of 
a brothers, blood cries from the ground and sounds in his ears 
like a peal from hell. The image of his beloved friend, as last 
he saw him, rises incessantly to his view. His wife and chil- 
dren too, ah I what compensation can he make for the be- 
reavement he has occasioned them r— The sorrows of the or- 
phan and the widow, plead with a just God for vengeance on 
the murderer. Their peace he has destroyed forever, their 
support he has taken from them, he has blasted all their hopes. 
The most tormenting reflections every where pursue him.... 
As God, is said, to have set a mark upon Cain after he slew 
Abel, so Heaven has set in his spirit the mark of its deep and 
avenging wrath. Nothing but the grave, or the sanctuary of 
religion, can restore the peace of such offenders. It is one of 
the most illustrious efforts of the grace of God, to give tran- 
quillity to a bosom thus deeply scarred with guilt. The blood 
of Christ, is the only ablution, that can cleanse the soul from 
such foul contamination. My brethren, I am not indulging 
in the fictions of fancy, I am drawing from the life. ...These 
are scenes frequently realized among us. These are the 
baleful fruits of this method of savage warfare* 



After having thus exhibited the practice, and refuted 
all those pretexts advanced in its defence, I proceed to sug- 
gest some important and awful considerations, to deter you 
from engaging in it. 

I have, already, hinted at these considerations, by ming- 
ling them with my refutation of the pleas alleged, in exte- 
nuation of the guilt of duelling. I shall now, more fully, di- 
late upon them. 

The enormous guilt you contract by it, should offer the 
first consideration, to deter you from entering the lists in 
such controversies. Let us, for a moment, weigh this cus- 
tom in the scales of right reason, and in the balance of the 
sanctuary, that we may ascertain the full weight of its ini- 
quity. 

A celebrated moralist* has very justly remarked, that 
" take away the circumstance of the duellist's exposing his 
own life, and it becomes assassination ; add this circumstance 
and what difference does it make ?" When you have the ma- 
lignity to wish to take the life of another, does it diminish 
your guilt, that you have the temerity to risk your own also, 
in the gratification of your wish ? Nor am I inclined to think 
that duelling has this advantage of assassination, that it is 
probable fewer instances would occur of the one than the 
other, since personal danger is to be encountered in the first 
case, and the other may be perpetrated with safety to the per- 
son.f Frequent assassinations will, at all times, be prevent- 
ed by the powerful influence of publick sentiment, and the 
formidable penalties of the laws ; penalties too that would be 

* Dr. Paley, in his Moral Philosophy; 

f I have sometimes heard it remarked, that were the custom of du- 
elling completely abolished, private assassination would succeed it, since 
such is the depravity of our nature, that it would not fail to break forth 
in some of the odious forms of revenge. I have already observed in the 
text, that private assassinations, are evils, which would find powerful 
correctives in the laws, and in that universal indignation they excite. 
Besides, this observation is i\oi confirmed by experience.. . . .We have yet 
to learn, that when Frederick the great of Prussia, and Louis the 14th 
of France, abolishei duelling in the, r dominions, by the several edicts 
they issued out against it, assassinations became more frequent. We 
know that they are not Qt$i *e frequent among the inhabitants of our Eas- 
tern states, where duelling is not practiced, than among those oi the 
Southern and middle states. The net is, that among that class of men 
who are addicted to that vice which, at present, so often disturbs the 
peace of fociety, private assassination would never be frequently perpc- 
t rated: The very principle *>j honor which, when so much abused, in the 
matter of duelling, acts in opposition to the measures of a wise govern- 
ment, and to the precepts of religion, would, in that of assissinatfon 
a ct as an auxiliary to them and operate ■ - pi , v . : ■ it. 



so 

rigorously executed : whereas duelling com Uides the 

law* Besides, how many causes operate to produce the fre- 
quent recurrence of duels, while they are at all tolerated ! 
Not the least instrumental in effecting these results, are those 
wretches, found lurking in the haunts of every society, who 
take a fell delight in engendering and fomenting quarrels, in 
discolouring and exaggerating injuries and affronts, in order 
to irritate and inflame the parties concerned, and thus conduct 
matters to these dreadful terminations. 

There are not a few, who are encouraged to rencounters 
of this nature, by the consideration that death is very rarely 
the result. u There are many chances in our favor," say they, 
" that we shall neither slay our antagonist nor be slain by him ; 
and it becomes a question of expediency, whether we had not 
better expose ourselves to this inconsiderable danger, than 
to future shame, mortification and pain." It may, indeed, 
be of infinite importance to you, that these broils should not 
terminate fatally. But let it be solemnly impressed upon your 
minds, that whatever may be the issue, the guilt you have 
contracted is precisely the same. If you go into the field 
with intent to slay another, from that moment, God has mark- 
ed you as a blood-thirsty man ; the crime of blood-guiltness 
covers you, and its awful penalty appears against you in the 
hand-writing of Heaven itself. If you do not intend to aim 
at his life, but merely to receive his fire, you become acces- 
sary to your own death, and thus incur the guilt of suicide. 
If you entertain no hatred or resentment against him, but ac- 
cept his summons merely to settle the point of honor, what 
rashness and insanity is it, thus to sport with every thing that 
is interesting in time or formidable in eternity ? 

But there are fairness and generosity, in this mode of ad- 
justing disputes, since, although he has injured or insulted 
you, you allow him the same chance of taking your life, that 
you claim of depriving him of his. Strange, indeed, must 
be the structure of his mind, and depraved the feelings of his 
heart, if this is a privilege, for which he will feel himself in- 
debted to you, Before he can derive gratification from such 
an indulgence, he must have become a monster in the order 
of grace, and have acquired an appetite, which delights in hu- 
man blood. The more this subject is turned and contemp- 
lated under its different aspects, the more monstrous and hor- 
rible are the deformities it displays to view. 

And, if when this custom is weighed in the scales of right 
reason, it discovers itself burthened with such a ponderous 



Si 

'oad of guilt, how much more when it is thrown into the ba- 
lance of the sanctuary ! My brethren, there is something 
strange and unaccountable, in our toleration of such a prac- 
tice. ...a practice so shocking to our feelings, so repugnant to 
all our clearest perceptions of moral duty, and so much at 
variance with the mild and heavenly precepts of our holy re- 
ligion. It would appear, as if we thought that death does not 
carry on his work of devastation with sufficient despatch among 
our race, but we must invent new methods of accelerating 
his progres. His arrows are every day flying around us, and 
yet we are not satisfied, we fabricate others more rapid in 
their flight, and supply his quiver with them. There are not 
inquietude and misery enough already in the world, we must 
use our exertions to swell the stream. Widows and orphans 
are not sufficiently numerous, we must augment their number. 
To die is not an event which, in the ordinary course of na- 
ture, is as awful as we would have it, we must rush on to en- 
counter death, under circumstances of horror, the most shock- 
ing to our sensibilities. The language does not furnish me 
with terms, strong enough to express my detestation of this 
custom. There is a phrenzy in it, which sets at defiance all 
efforts to portray it. The man who, without an ostensible ob- 
ject, of sufficient magnitude, to justify him for inflicting, even 
a trifling injury upon another ; who, upon a mere puncti- 
lio of honor, thus wantonly invades the peace of families, 
ulcerates his own conscience and subjects himself to the end- 
less goadings of remorse, not only exposes his own life and 
that of a brother to imminent hazard, but jeopardizes the ever- 
lasting salvation of both ; who, from the bosom of the church 
in which he has imbibed the doctrines of peace from his very 
cradle, goes into the field, with the direful intent of murder- 
ing a fellow-creature ; who, although educated at the feet of 
the meek and holy Jesus, offers up those sacrafices to Moloch, 
insults his religion and braves the wrath of his God, who 
thus virtually disclaims all concern for his everlasting destiny, 
and challenges the terrors of hell-fire ; is surely the greatest 
madman that can be imagined. We are stupified with hor- 
ror at the monstrous guilt of transactions of this nature, and 
in the large portion of the terrible, which blends itself with 
those emotions they awaken within us, emotions so nearly al- 
lied to the sublime, we lose our sense of their stupendous 
criminality. 

If the enormous guilt of this vice, should deter you from 
the commission of it, you should be no less forcibly withheld, 
by considering its baleful effects upon yourselves. Indulge 



I 



in all the sins, has a deleterious operation upon our minds* 
The vices impair the scrupulous delicacy of the conscience , 
cloud the judgment against the nice perceptions of moral duty, 
fill the memory with painful recollections, corrupt the heart, 
the great fountain of action, and leave their stings behind, 
that never cease to disquiet us. What, then, shall not he ex- 
pect, whose mind has to encounter guilt, of such a gigan- 
tick form, as that of murder ? Contests of this kind, in 
which men deal only in wounds and death, throwing the 
soul, as they do, into such violent and furious commo- 
tion, like earthquakes in the natural world, convulse and 
shatter the whole moral frame and texture of man. They 
harden the heart, fill the mind with the most gloomy 
images, extinguish all those emotions which awake the 
soul to tenderness or animate it to virtue, and plant dag- 
gers in the bosom. The Creator, has so wisely arranged 
the order of moral nature, that while in the exercise of our 
benevolent affections, we find our happiness and peace ; so 
also, from the misrule of our malevolent and criminal pas- 
sions, flows our inquietude and misery. Now, revenge, is one 
cf the most malignant, turbulent and gloomy passions, that 
actuate the human breast, and that interrupt and poison the 
intercourses of 1:1c. He, who u subject- to its sway, finds it 
a Kir) 7 , which unices ;ln ; r iv agitates and disquiets him. What 
furious storms does it engender in the bosom, what dark de- 
signs does it conceive, what nefarious deeds does it not hesi- 
tate to perform, what names of discord does it kindle . ? All 
the tasks which, like a hard and cruel master, it imposes upon 
mankind, are tasks of misery. How remote from the serene 
and peaceful state of the christian's and the good man's mind, 
is that of the duellist, whose miserable office it is to become 
skilled in the barbarous rites and ceremonies, and adroit in 
executing the direful purposes, of vengeance. He finds, in 
the service of this modern Moloch, this great coadjutor of the 
grand adversary of God and man, a most irksome and wretch- 
ed bondage. Instead of cultivating the meekness, the for- 
bearance, and the heavenly temper and disposition to forgive, 
enjoined upon the christian, the very maxims inculcated on 
him in that school of honor, in which he receives the rudi- 
ments of his baleful art, render him irascible, captious, vin- 
dictive, cruel, scrupulously attentive to the most ridiculous 
punctilios, always on the watch, lest his honor should receive 
a wound, and prepared to resent, even to the death, the slight- 
est affront that can be offered to him. Wretched being ! He 
is a scourge to all with whom he associates, and a torment to 



33 

himself. The good, avoid his company as dangerous, the 
peaceful, by an involuntary impulse, flee from him, he finds 
left in his society, only the quarrelsome, the turbulent and 
the revengeful, like himself ; and among these he spends his 
time, amidst continually recurring broils. Such is the habi- 
tually perturbed state of the revengeful. All the ways of 
wickedness, are ways of wretchedness, and all her paths woe ; 
but those of this species of guilt, are preeminently so. And 
if man is so unquiet, while he permits himself to be subject 
to the dominion of this criminal passion when once, 
yielding to its blind and barbarous impulses, he has stained 
his hands and sullied his conscience with the blood of a fel- 
low-creature.. ..ah ! the peace of his bosom is, then, fled fore- 
ver. That serenity of mind, and tranquil state of the heart 
and affections, which are essential to all true enjoyment, are 
destroyed, and are succeeded by clouds and darkness, storms 
and tempests in his intellectual and moral nature. "My punish- 
ment is greater than lean bear," said Cain, in the bitterness of 
his wounded spirit, after he had killed his brother Abel. It 
is the established law of the moral world, that the punishment 
of ail murderers, should be greater than they can bear, In- 
supportable anguish, becomes the inmate of that bosom, which 
is haunted by the frightful recollections of death and murder. 
If all sins leave their stings behind to disquiet us, this one 
shoots into the very bottom of the heart, keen, penetrating and 
empoisoned arrows, that remain there, irritate, inflame and ul- 
cerate the parts for the remainder of life. It is thus that the Al- 
mighty, although he reserves an equal distribution of justice to 
a future life,nevertheless, even in this world, exhibits himself as 
a God, who will by no means spare the guilty, as an avenger 
to execute indignation and wrath upon every soul of man, that 
doeth evil. These wounds, which he makes in the spirits of 
the guilty, and which nothing but the balm of religion can 
heal, are fearful impressions, engraved by the hand of his 
wrathful indignation. In chese characters, he communicates 
to us his righteous and heavy displeasure against sin. 

My brethren, am I indulging in idle speculations, in the 
fictions of fancy ? Are not my observations verified, by the 
uniform experience of mankind ? Appeal to those, who have 
exemplified in themselves, the truths which I am endeavour- 
ing to enforce, who have shed blood, in those unholy strifes,, 
to which they are prompted by revenge. They, would they 
prove faithful to their own emotions, could chill your sou! 
with the recital of the many deep sorrows which, by a single 
ra<?h deed, thev drew unon themselves. If thev have not be= 



34 

iome hardened in the work, and dead to all the compunctious 
visitings of nature, or have not sought their peace, where only 
it can be found, at the feet and in the grace of Christ, this 
single act has filled all the remainder of ther lives, with the 
bitterness of death itself. It has hung upon their memory, 
like a dark cloud, fraught with the fires of Heaven discharg- 
ing ite bolts into the bosom. The injured spirit of the bro- 
ther, whom they have slain, every where pursues them. Like 
an evil genius, it haunts and terrifies them. It poisons their 
enjoyments, exacerbates their sorrows, and banishes the re- 
pose of their pillow. When awake, it is present to their 
thoughts, when asleep it rises before them in the visions of 
the night, a horrid spectre, into the deepest retirement, it fol- 
lows them and disturbs their tranquility, in the midst of the 
merriment and laughter of the board of banquetting and fes- 
tivity, it is the sorrow that lies heavy at their heart. It fills 
dieir lives with anguish and agony. O ! young man ! and 
will you not be taught wisdom and forbearance, by the suffer- 
ings of those who have gone before you in this mad career ? 
"Will you still suffer yourself to be borne along with the 
stream of a criminal fashion, although it is wafting you into 
the abyss of perdition ? When you see the rock before you, 
on which you must be dashed to pieces, will you not avoid it ? 
When the gulph discloses its yawning horrors to your eyes ? 
will you plunge into it ? My God ! my Saviour ! Spirit of 
mercy and grace ! do thou, who hast the hearts of all men in 
thy hands, arrest our inconsiderate young men, in courses so 
fatal to their present and everlasting peace ! 

If the vice of duelling has a most baneful effect upon the 
mind of him who indulges in it, it is no less baneful in the ef- 
fect it produces on society. And this consideration presents 
the next motive to you, to abstain from it. You need not 
be told, that it is a flagrant and presumptuous violation of 
the laws of the land in which you live. It is one of the most 
heinous crimes that those laws contemplate ; and, according- 
ly, the most formidable penalty is annexed to it. And dare 
vou thus outrage, in one of their fundamental and most es- 
sential points too, those laws, to whose benign sway, you 
are indebted for the peaceable and secure enjoyment of your 
property, your liberty and your lives ? If a detestable and 
criminable custom, is to give you a dispensation from your 
obligation to obey them, and to absolve you from the guilt 
contracted by their infraction, why may not the most exe- 
crable culprits, of every description, claim a like privilege, 
and practice their enormities without the fear of punishment ? 



By a daring act of this kind, you encourage, as far as the 
influence of your example extends, a spirit of insubordina- 
tion and contempt of the laws, aim a blow at the root of civil 
order, burst asunder the ligaments that connect society, let 
loose the robber upon your houses at night, and break off 
the chain that binds the hand which holds the dagger of the 
assassin. By the force of your example, instead of discou- 
raging, as vou should do^ you are perpetuating an evil, fraught 
with ruin to the world, and thus entailing it, with all its long 
train of miseries, upon your guiltless posterity ; you are 
accumulating on your head, the execrations of future fathers ? 
mothers, wives and children, who, at the most distant pe- 
riods, . shall rise up and accuse you, in the bitterness of their 
soul, as the hated author of their calamities : you are hurl- 
ing the firebrands of civil discord. The blood shed in 
these nefarious contests, is the germ, out of which spring 
those broils, which agitate and lay waste society. On 
all such occasions, the sorest and most incurable wounds 
are inflicted on the bosoms of the surviving relatives and 
friends. Hence private quarrels and animosities, family 
feuds, hereditary hatreds and hostilities, subsequent scenes 
of violence and death. And, perhaps, no considera- 
tion can more effectually expose the guilt and mischievous 
tendency of duelling, than this : were all mankind to act, con- 
formably to the principles, and in the spirit of the duellist, 
where would an evil of this kind, when once it had arisen^ 
find a period to its career ? It would grow and swell in mag- 
nitude, and collect the elements of destruction, as it advanc- 
ed, until, at length, bursting in " hideous ruin and combus- 
tion," it would spread general devastation throughout society. 
The same resentment, excited into a state of tenfold infiam- 
mation, which carried the original parties into the field, would, 
when one of them has perished in the rencounter, induce ah 
those who are interested for him, to resort to the same mode 
of hostility, to avenge his death. Thus one act of outrage 
would lead on to another, and murder beget murder, until 
the haunts of civilized man would exhibit but one gloomy 
scene of violence and carnage. You inflict the most exem- 
plary punishment, upon those miscreants who fire your dwel- 
lings, and shall you permit these worse incendiaries, to escape 
with impunity, who would kindle a flame that spreads 
around universal ruin and conflagration ? Nor have I yet told 
of one half of the noxious and destructive fruits, which man- 
kind reap from duelling. My brethren, what mad rage of 
fashion is this, which is not onlvto release us from the fear 



oG 

of God, from the sway of religion, from the control of. law, 
and from the restraints of moral duty, but which also, as by 
a kind of chymick power, is to transmute us from men to 
demons, and seal our souls against every soft emotion of ten- 
derness and humanity ? Young man ! you have a lather and 
mother, whose tenderness and fostering care, merit from you 
'.he richest returns of gratitude, of affection and duty. \> ill 
you bring down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave I 
You have a wife and family, who regard you as their protec- 
tor, their best friend, their pride and chiei" joy. Have you the 
cruelty to leave them to contend, without your guardian aid, 
with the stormy winds and tempests of life, and to converse, 
for the remainder of their days, with sighs and tears ? But 
you yourself have escaped with life, and your antagonist has 
fallen in the conflict.... Alas ! of what a scene of wretchedness, 
have you not made yourself the voluntary and odious instru- 
ment. Go, and review the whole, that when all the lessons 
of morality .and religion have lost their effect upon you, you 
may learn wisdom by the contemplation of the dreadful works 
of your own hands. See that father and mother, in whose 
hearts you have infixed empoisoned arrows, in speechless 
agony bewailing their loss.. ..listen to the shrieks and incohe- 
rent ravings of a distracted wife, enduring more than all the 
bitterness of death... .hear the cries of his little children, whose 
innocent tears and lamentations seem to upbraid you as the 
author of their sorrows.... lift up the shroud, and behold once 
more the object of your fury.. ..see this son, the pride of his 
parents, this husband, the guardian of his family, this man 
created in the image of his God, this candidate for immor- 
tality and glory, shorn of all his honors, sullied, disfigured, 
a livid and putrifying carcase.. ..follow the bier, surrounded 
by those whom you have made mourners, that transports him 
to his long home.. ..behold him deposited in the tomb, whilst 
religion, all-benignant as she is, contemplates his dust in 
mute despair, and dares not utter, over his ashes, a single 
benediction, or ejaculate even a feeble hope.. ..go, and review- 
ing this whole scene of misery and despair.. ..if all the most 
tremendous sanctions of the gospel have lost their influence 
upon your mind, if you have disclaimed all submission to 
the authorities of Heaven and earth, if you are resolved to turn 
a deaf ear, alike to the suggestions of reason and the remon- 
strances of conscience.. ..go, and, at any rate, moved by the 
sacred impulses of sensibility, on the alter of humanity, vow 
eternal enmity to this calamitous and destructive custom* 



::■ 

Finally, you should be deterred from the commission of this 
vice, by an awful apprehension of the consequences which 
may ensue through eternity. My brethern, if the doctrines 
of our religion, in spite of all the calumnies muttered against 
them, by that malevolent and blasphemous philosophy, which 
would not only rob virtue of its hopes, but release vice also 
from its fears ; if the doctrines of our religion be, indeed, as 
we have been wont fondly to regard them, eternal truths — If 
we be, as this religion informs us we are, immortal beings ; 
if a dreadful eternity is before us at our departure from this 
life ; if, after being arraigned at the bar of God, we shall be 
doomed to eternal happiness or everlasting misery, according- 
ly as we have performed or neglected to perform our duty in 
this present life, if these things be so, what new and frightful 
horrors stand revealed to our sight on these theatres of blood- 
shed ! A rencounter of this kind, is then, an attempt made 
by two beings destined to immortality and glory, in order to 
sate a brutal revenge or adjust a ridiculous point of honor, to 
to deprive each other of all that is desirable and interesting in 
this life, and of all that is blissful in the world to come, and 
also, for the same trivial reasons, to compel each other to en- 
counter all that is formidable in time and tremendous in eter- 
nity. What madness ! what fatuity ! — O man ! ever the slave, 
and but too often the victim of thy passions, why endeavour 
by new and factitious expedients to accelerate thy doom ! 
"Will not death, soon enough, overtake thee, without thy ex- 
ertions to hasten his approach ? Will not the awful tribunal of 
thv God, speedily enough disclose its splendors to thy view, 
without thy rushing up to it, covered with a brother's blood, 
to se U. the sentence of thy everlasting condemnation, and sink 
thee to deep and remidiless perdition ? Is not the flood of time 
wafting thee swiftly enough into the ocean of eternity, per- 
haps an eternity of woe to thee, that thou must endeavor to 
urge on its course ? 

My brethren, before you resolve to have recourse to this 
method of deciding your disputes, pause, reflect, deliberate. 
Weigh well the consequences, before you enter on the rash 
and desperate deed. Are vou prepared to perish yourself, in 
such a warfare, or are you prepared, thus with your own 
hands, to decide the everlasting doom of a brother I If you 
have prepared your mind to meet neither of these alternatives 
then, shun, as you would, death, hell, all that is dreadful in 
time and eternity, the hazardous encounter. Let me put you 
to the test. Can you be prepared, in this shape, to meet your 
own fate ? What ! with hands still reeking with the blood of 



SB 

a fellow-creature, shed in contempt of the high commands of 
God, will you dare ascend into the presence of that immacu- 
lately holy Being, and extend them to his throne, to supplicate 
his mercy ? What ! while scarcely yet cooled from the boil- 
ing ardors of a furious and deadly revenge, will you ascend 
to the tribunal of a Saviour, who most solemnly enjoined it 
on you, with his latest breath, to love your brethren ? Ah ! 
with what infinite shame and confusion of face, will you be 
covered in the presence of so holy and so just a judge ! — You 
who have been guided in your conduct, by the laws of honor, 
will rind, to your dismay, that in the Courts of Heaven, at 
the tribunal of eternal justice, those laws, which you deemed 
so ail- important, are never recognized, and that the pure and 
holy law of the gospel only guides its decisions. You who 
are so tremulously alive to disgrace, shall there be condemn- 
ned to shame and everlasting contempt. Every object pre- 
sented to you at the judgment seat of God, shall rise up and 
exhibit you as a monster of iniquity, and aggravate the sen- 
tence of your condemnation. The parents, who gave you a 
virtuous and pious education, the ministers of religion who 
had instructed you, from your tenderest years, in the lessons 
of forgiveness, the brother whose blood you essayed to spill 
in this unlicensed war, — the God, who in a voice of thunder, 
had denounced his vengeance against murderers, — -the Saviour 
who had died to redeem you, and whose whole life, from 
the manger to the tomb, afforded you but a continned incen- 
tive to love — all these shall appear as so many witnesses against 
you, display you as an object of disgust and horror to an as- 
esmbied universe ,* hell itself, shall open its abhorred abysses, 
and burn with augmented fury, to consume the wretch who 
descends into it, polluted with such atrocious guilt. 

Such are the tremendous consequences which will follow to 
yourself, should you perish in this way, and have no time allow- 
ed you to repent. An apprehension of these consequences 
should deter you from the practice. Nor should you be less 
deterred from it, by an apprehension of the consequences 
which may follow to your antagonist, should he perish in the 
combat. Can you, for a moment, sustain the thought of pre* 
cipitating a fellow-creature, upon his unchangeable doom ? 
He has offended, or perhaps injured you, and for a temporary 
or trivial offence, you would inflict upon him an everlasting 
punishment. What inj> ju ! Your God is disposed to spare 
him still longer, in his tender mercy, and the Saviour, to al- 
low him farther time to repent, amend and be saved ; but 
your eye pities him not, your hand will not spare him, with 
unrelenting cruelty you pursue him, and are not satisfied 



until you plunge him into the horrible gulph of perdition. 
Rendered wretched by you, he will pour his bitterest impre- 
cations on your head through interminable ages. Ah ! could 
I tear away the veil that conceals the regions of despair, and 
disclose to you those unhappy men, who have been hurried 
to their doom, by this species of violence, before they had 
time to repent of their folly and make their peace with 

God« could I display, those raging flames that encircle and 

agonize them — could I sound in your years, those cries 
of deep anguish which they are uttering without inter- 
mission, and without hope of relief — could I— but my spirit, 
shuddering with horror, recoils from the scene which my 
fancy was exhibiting — I can utter no more on the subject. 
May God himself, fill you with a holy abhorrence of those 
vices that lead to such dreadful consequences ! 

To conclude, with briefly hinting at the most effectual 
means of exploding this custom— I know that this end will 
be most effectually accomplished, by extending the influ- 
ence of our holy religion ; and subjecting to its dominion, 
the hearts and lives of men. Nevertheless, there is much 
to be effected, by removing those causes which now operate 
to produce it, and availing ourselves of every mean placed in 
our power, to discountenance and exterminate it. To the at- 
tainment of this end, so devoutly to be wished, let our pa- 
pers, either cease entirely to give publicity to transactions of 
this nature, or not fail to communicate them, in such terms 
as shall excite a general abhorrence and detestation of them. 
Let our rulers cease to set examples of this vice to their fel- 
low-citizens, and thus give it their countenance and support. 
Let them level against it the several penalties of the law, and 
let her magistrates be vigilant at their posts, and see that 
those laws be executed and those severe penalties inflicted.^ 

* Note. The. Legislature of Virginia, have set an example which, 
we trust, will be followed by those of her sister States m which this cus- 
tom prevails, in the severe laws she has passed against Duelling, and in 
the zeal and fidelity with which those laws have been executed. If we 
have been rightly informed, those laws have not been without a good 
effect already, and instances of duels have been less frequent since they 

were enacted. We admit the justice of the very common observation, 

that neither the passing of the most severe laws, nor the utmost faithful- 
ness in executingthem, will ever be able to abolish the practice, whilst 
the public sentiment is in its favour ; but, we beg leave to add also, that 
every effort of this kind, has a tendency to produce that state of publiek 
opinion and feeling in which it shall be deemed dishonourable and be of 
course excluded. I ought not here to omit mentioning also, that the re- 
solutions passed against duelling by the Cincinnati Society in some of the 
States, deserve the highest encomiums. Measures entered into by men 
of such known and acknowledged ccurage, an: 1 such weight of charac- 
ter, cannot fail to do good , 



Lei every g$e< aiaii, every m?m who has the interests of so- 
ciety at beai ., aise a decided voice of reprobation against 
it, arid use las utmost exertions to hunt it out of the world. — 
Let us make it ;; ' rtof the education of our children, to in- 
spire them with a , ah' r-nce of this inhuman practice. 
Resorting to sue. txeui?;, ve shall find, probably, sonvi 

difficulties at fa'st to encounter, but cur eiforts, we may be as- 
sured, will ultimately be crowned with suscess. We shall abo- 
lish, the unnatural and barbarous custom of offering up these 
human sacrifices. The most powerful motives propel us to x 
vigilance and activity in this matter. Let us not cease our 
endeavours, until we have arrested in his course this angel of 
death, who walks through our land staining his footsteps with 
our blood. The blood of our unfortunate countrymen, who 
have already perished in these unholy strifes, cries out to 
Heaven and condemns us of delinquency in duty. The tears 
of those families whose peace has been destroyed by this 
cruel spoiler, are still flowing. Let us rise in all our energy 
and overwhelm with our indignation, offenders, who thall dare 
thus insult the majesty of our laws — While we are willing to 
forgive past offences of this kind, if their perpetrators are 
penitent, let us be on the alert to prevent their future recur- 
rence. Let us drag such culprits to public justice. The 
welfare of society, the peace of domestick life, the interest 
of immortal souls, are at stake. — Let our exertions be ardent 
and unintermitted, and we have every reason to anticipate 
ihat they shall be followed by the blessing of the God of 
peace, 



FINIS, 



I: " ; ' "' ' 




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